Entrevista a Milton Friedman

Aquí. Destaco algunas frases:

Sobre Oriente Medio:

The big issue is whether the United States will succeed in its venture of reshaping the Middle East. It is not clear to me that using military force is the way to do it. We should not have gone into Iraq. But we have. At the moment, the most pressing issue, therefore, is to make sure that effort is completed in a satisfactory way.

Sobre la estancada economía europea:

They all ought to imitate Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan; free markets in short.

Germany’s problem, in part, is that it went into the euro at the wrong exchange rate that overvalued the deutsche mark. So you have a situation in the eurozone where Ireland has inflation and rapid expansion while Germany and France have stalled and had the difficulties of adjusting.

Sobre el déficit de la balanza de pagos americana:

If you look at the balance sheet, the US is heavily in debt. If you look at the income account—the amount of interest the US pays abroad—it is almost exactly equal to the amount of interest that it receives from abroad. American assets held abroad are earning a higher rate of return than foreign assets held here.

That is understandable because what is most attractive about the US to people and countries with wealth is that it can provide security, insurance really, against political instability. Nobody is afraid that the money they place in the US is at risk of expropriation or of in some other way being taken away. For this safety, the wealth holders of the world are willing to accept a lower rate of return. US assets abroad, in contrast, are riskier and thus yield a higher rate of return.

This explains why there is a rough balance in real terms.

Sobre China:

The same thing will happen in China that happened in Chile. Political freedom will ultimately break out of its shackles. Tiananmen Square was only the first episode. It is headed for a series of Tiananmen Squares. It cannot continue to develop privately and at the same time maintain its authoritarian character politically. It is headed for a clash. Sooner or later, one or the other will give.

Hong Kong is the bellwether. If the Chinese stick to their agreement to let Hong Kong go its own path, then China will also go that way. If they don’t, that is a very bad sign. I’m optimistic.

Sobre internet:

It has had a tremendous effect. Look at what has happened in China. People can talk to each other, and the government, despite its best efforts, can’t control it.

The Internet also moves us closer to “perfect information” on markets.

The Internet is the most effective instrument we have for globalization.

Sobre el futuro del Estado:

Socialism today has only come to mean government extraction of income from the haves and giving it to the have-nots. It is about the transfer of income, not ownership. That is still around.

Sure, the state might come back. The only reason free markets have a ghost of a chance is that they are so much more efficient than any other form of organization.

The argument for the free market is a complicated and sophisticated one and depends on demonstration of secondary effects.

Una agridulce perspectiva de futuro. Vía el Freakonomics blog.